Generalized Quantifiers in Declarative and Interrogative Sentences

Abstract

In this paper we present a logical system able to compute the semantics of both declarative and interrogative sentences. Our proposed analysis takes place at both the sentential and at the discourse level. We use syntactic inference on the sentential level for declarative sentences, while the discourse level comes into play for our treatment of questions. Our formalisation uses a type logic sensitive to both the syntactic and semantic properties of natural language. We will show how an account of the linguistic data follows naturally from the logical relations inherent in the type logic.